A CATV (cable TV) system includes a communications network which provides service to customers. Elements in the CATV system receive power from a power service provider, e.g., power company. Such power is often supplied by a power network sometimes referred to as the power grid. The operator of the commercial power grid is normally a different company from the CATV company which controls nodes of the CATV system and which is responsible for providing communications services to customers located at various customer premises. The CATV system is often divided into regions or service areas for purposes of providing communications services. For communications purposes, a CATV company often divides up an area into what are sometimes referred to as service groups. A small network node, such a hub site, may provide services to customer premises arranged into one or a few service groups. Each service group normally corresponds to a small local area near the hub site providing service for the service group.
A network headend, e.g, a central office which provides content and services to multiple hubsites is normally equipped with backup generators. However small network nodes such as hubsites may or may not be supplied with backup power and in some cases a network node maybe supplied with backup power for one but not necessarily all service groups supported by the network node.
A power company often divides up geographic areas into regions for power supply purposes. However, the power grid maybe and often is configured independently and differently from the communications network. Thus the way the power company divides up the power grid into regions for purposes of supplying power is normally independent of, and different from, how the CATV company divides up a region for purposes of supplying service to customer premises and where the CATV company deploys network nodes. Furthermore, the division of the communications network and power grid may change over time as each company independently modifies its system. As a result, nodes in a communications network responsible for providing services to customer premises may end up in a different region of a power grid than the customer premises (CPE) devices to which communications services are provided.
Optical or other nodes in the CATV network and/or other communications network are used to convert optical signaling to radio frequency (RF) signals and RF amplifies are used to amplify the RF signals to make up for the loss experience as these signals pass through coaxial cables to a subscribers home. The coaxial cable network extends inside a subscriber's home to modulator-demodulator devices that convert the RF signals to Ethernet communication or set top box equipment used to convert the RF signals to another format like HDMI to be connected to the subscriber's television set.
All these active devices in the CATV network and in the home require energy generally in the form of AC power from the public utility, e.g. power company. The network devices such as optical nodes and amplifiers typically require conditioned power from standby and non-standby ferroresonant power supplies that derive their power form the public utility. These power supplies are typically rated at 1000 to 2000 VA. The ferroresonat design achieves very high reliability, generally with mean-time-between failures (MTBF) in excess of 250,000 hours of 28 years. The simplicity of the design, the avoidance of silicon in the direct power path, and the inherent lighting and short circuit protection enable the reliability performance despite the harsh outside operating environment.
The supply in the buffer between the power utility and HFC components, regulating and grooming the AC output of active system devices. A typical supply will have stand-by capability, which provides system power in the event of a power utility outage. This is done using batteries and an inverter module to convert DC to AC for the system component, Stand-by supplies typically provide up to 90 minutes of power to the system, depending on the amperage draw from system components, and the state of battery charge, at the time of inversion or outage. Typical HFC power supplies deliver 87.5 VAC output@15 amperes to the HFC system. The supplies typically require 110-120 VAC input form the low power company/utility.
Some power supplies are configured with a transponder that communicates with a Network Operation Center (NOC) when a power outage occurs. Power outages inducing an inversion event may or may not signal an alarm because not all power supplies contain a transponder or method of communicating telemetry with the NOC.
With the advent of SmartGrid technology used by the power utility companies, circuit faults are generally not widespread outages but more isolated events that are dynamically configured. This technology may isolate a CATV customer's home from the CATV optical node such that an inversion event is activated at the node without the customer's home being affected or vice versa. The case where a customer's home is not affected by a utility outage and a node supply is not backed up will cause and interruption in CATV services to the customer's home.
In the case where a network node is in the same power supply, e.g., utility grid, region, both the network node and CPE devices are likely to suffer power outages at the same time. The effect of failing to provide backup power at the network node in such cases, or providing backup power for a short duration corresponding to the expected backup battery power duration of CPE devices, is likely to be an efficient way of allocation resources since customers in a region without power are not likely to notice if the network node providing them service is unavailable due to power loss since the CPE devices will suffer from the same power loss.
However, when a network node providing services to CPE devices is in a different power supply, e.g., power grid, region than the CPE devices, then backing up of the network node for all or an extended period of time during which a power outage at the network node occurs maybe effective in maintaining service to CPE devices which, being in another portion of the power grid, may remain powered during a period of time in which the network node loses external power due to a power grid outage.
Unfortunately, power companies often do not share detailed power grid information and/or the available information is not completely accurate. Accordingly, to facilitate power management and deployment of backup power resources, there is a need for methods and/or apparatus which would allow a communications system to automatically detect whether network nodes and the CPE devices serviced by the network nodes are in the same or different power supply, e.g., power grid, regions. There is also a need for methods and apparatus for converting collected information about the relationship between power supply, e.g., power grid, regions, network node locations, and locations of CPE devices serviced by network nodes into information and/or images which can be easily understood by communications network managers and used in making backup power allocations. In addition there is a need for methods and/or apparatus for automatically control the deployment and/or allocation of backup power resources based on collected or generated information indicating the relationship between power supply religions, network nodes and/or CPE devices which are provided service by a network node.